Bellator lightweight champion Michael Chandler isn’t sure whether he’ll be fighting the same Eddie Alvarez he did two years ago, but he hopes he is.

“When you look at the competitiveness of myself and Eddie, nothing has changed,” Chandler told MMAjunkie.com in advance of Bellator 106.

It’s a different story outside the cage, where Alvarez has been for the past 12 months as he battled in court to win his freedom from the Viacom-owned promotion and then decided he was better served slugging it out with punches rather than pens.

Following a settlement earlier this year, Alvarez (24-3 MMA, 9-2 BMMA) dropped his push to sign with an interested UFC and agreed to continue fighting for Bellator. He said his rematch with Chandler could set up a third bout if he’s victorious, though his plan is to beat the champion so badly that his promoter nixes that idea.

Naturally, Alvarez’s layoff brings questions about ring rust. Chandler (12-0 MMA, 9-0 BMMA) has fought three times and hasn’t missed a step while defending the belt he took from Alvarez in a bout considered by many to be the best in Bellator’s history.

When they first met at Bellator 58, Alvarez had won seven straight fights and was considered to be fighting at the top of his form. Chandler had less than half his experience and was a decided underdog. After a frantic, back-and-forth battle, Chandler rocked Alvarez in the fourth with an uppercut and secured a rear-naked choke.

The two have switched places in betting lines, with Alvarez a 2-to-1 underdog. But despite the disparity in their respective cage time over the past year, Chandler was hesitant to declare any sort of advantage leading into the rematch, which headlines the event tomorrow at Long Beach Arena in California.

“It’s all speculation, but I’d like to think that I could,” he said. “Fighting is so crazy, you guys and the fans only see what happens in those minutes that we’re in the cage, but it’s eight to 10 weeks of training camp that we have to go through. God willing, everybody in our family is healthy, and we don’t have to go through crazy stuff outside of the fighting, like court battles and all the stuff he may have been going through.

“It’s definitely a test for him. Is he going to be able to come back and be the same Eddie? I’m hoping he is, because that’s the best thing for my career and everybody watching that night. We’ll see.”

Indeed, the possibility that the two might recreate that magic is one of the driving forces behind a rematch, and with the cancelation of a fight between Tito Ortiz and Quinton Jackson, the bout will get the spotlight it deserves when it caps off the Spike TV-televised main-card following prelims on Spike.com.

“He’s a great competitor,” Chandler said of Alvarez. “He knows how to prepare, he knows how to train, he’s been in this sport a decade now, so he’s coming for that belt. He wants it bad. You guys have heard it in the promos. I’m just believing that I want it more, and it’s going to take me getting completely knocked out or a limb breaking and the ref stopping the fight for the fight to be stopped on my part.”

Alvarez isn’t any less serious when talking about Chandler. After a Wednesday workout for fans and media on mats set in a corner of the Long Beach Arena, he held his hands up high, flexed and declared, “New champion.” Chandler, he continued, was old news. He then smiled at a Bellator handler’s suggestion that he is the “returning champion,” which as the former titleholder, he is, albeit without a belt.

On the mats and in front of reporters, Alvarez said his one-year layoff was like “a good sleep” that rejuvenated him for what’s undoubtedly one of the most critical fights of his professional career. He had moved full-time to Florida to train with the Blackzilians. He had trained as realistically as possible for the past four months. He said he is now focused squarely on what’s ahead of him rather than his contract.

In short, everything had changed. Whether that translates in the cage is what he and Chandler will find out on Saturday.

“Everything is going to be different,” Alvarez said. “The first time I fought Chandler, I needed money. I was thinking about money way too much. I was thinking about my contract. My focus was way off. Not only was it way off, I didn’t believe in the people that were guiding me, so I felt like all my decisions in the fight were on me, and it became overwhelming. It was important for me to get better guidance, better coaches to show me the way. That’s why I moved to Florida, and man, it’s been mind-blowing.

“I’m completely different. I’m a changed man, and you guys will see it. I don’t need to say it any longer, or beating your ears about it or sell it to you guys. You’ll see it in a few days.”

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